


Right of Way

by regentzilla



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4471586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regentzilla/pseuds/regentzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you want to be a good girl, or do you want to die?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right of Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EvilMuffins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/gifts).



The crisp, wet sound sound of Shiori's teeth popping through the skin of an apple filled the empty fencing room right to the tops of the vaulted ceilings. The sound set Juri's own teeth on edge and shivered up her back, even as she concentrated on her breathing and the stretch of her muscles. Juri always lingered after fencing lessons to stretch and relax, but she always did it alone— Shiori was the last person she expected to keep her company.

“Would you like a bite?”

Juri turned, just enough to look over her shoulder at Shiori. She was perched in a chair, birdlike legs crossed delicately in front of her and slender fingers offering the bitten apple. The last warm light of the sun painted the room in splendid orange but cast Shiori's face into shadow.

“No, thank you,” Juri said, turning away again. “I don't accept food from strangers.”

She could feel in the air the way Shiori bristled at that. It was easy to imagine her face, deliberate and expressionless as her extended arm curled back.

“You know, if you don't get enough vitamins, you could die,” Shiori said, slow and careful but with a dark twinge. “Do you want to be a good girl, or do you want to die?”

Juri said nothing.

“Fine,” Shiori spat out, more bristly than she intended to sound. “What about a quick match, then?”

That got Juri to turn again, surprised. “A match?”

“A quick one. Best of three?”

In an instant, dozens of questions ran through Juri's mind— surely Shiori couldn't just want to fence. That wasn't how she operated. Juri let her arms drop out of the stretch to hang at her sides as she scoured Shiori's expression for some hint of a deeper meaning, but found nothing.

She slowly retrieved her mask from the bench where she had placed it after the lesson, noting that Shiori's lips tugged into a faint smile. After a moment of thought she drew an épée from the rack of swords tucked against the wall. Shiori hummed and let Juri stand waiting on the strip for a few heavy moments before she rose and retrieved her mask and weapon as well.

“Best of three,” Juri confirmed as she twisted her hair into a knot at the back of her head, then pulled her mask over her face.

Shiori's face was only sunlit for a few moments before she too was masked. The anonymity of the figure at the other end of the strip, the white bulk of the suit and the total blankness of the mask, sent an angry chill up Juri's spine that she squashed back down before it could reach her mind. A match. Best of three. She'd done this countless times before.

Shiori brought her feet together, squared her shoulders, and held up her sword in front of her face, a vertical line perfectly centered in the middle of the mask's oval. Again Juri's mind was set to racing— why a salute, why now?— and she realized after a moment that was exactly what Shiori intended.

Juri returned the salute, stiff-armed and formal, face held rigid despite the mask.

“En garde,” Shiori said, muffled, the warm sunset glinting from her épée as she took position.

“Prêt,” Juri responded, mirroring the pose. She tried to focus on nothing but the match ahead— her stance, her breathing, the angle of the épée— the world slowly shrank around her until there might as well have been endless nothing outside of the strip.

“Allez!”

  


* * *

  


When the two of them were very young, they often played pretend in the woods behind Shiori's home.

Juri always went to Shiori's house to play, because she always felt strange when Shiori was at hers. Her family wasn't poor, not by any stretch, but Shiori always seemed to have just a little more. Any toy or book Juri ever wanted was always in Shiori's hands before it was in hers. Shiori always shared, because that was what good friends did, and it did make Juri happy, but also a little embarrassed.

The white noise of the cicadas in the summer turned their branch forts into a fortresses, a place where it was safe to whisper secrets. Juri often made things up, little misdemeanours that would make her sound more fun, more of a troublemaker like Shiori. She suspected Shiori made some things up too.

One day, when the branches drooping down around the oldest and thickest tree were a magical forest and Shiori's house was their castle far off in the misty distance, Shiori weaved crowns of flowers for both of them.

“I'm the witch queen,” Shiori said, tiny white flowers peppering her hair like snow, “and you're one of the lonely witches from the mountains.”

Juri's crown was just a little too big, nudging her hair down over her eyes. “I don't want to be lonely,” she said, trying to find a comfortable way to wear the wreath. “And I don't want to be a witch.”

That was when Shiori hugged her tightly, catching her surprised and knocking the crown of flowers over her eyes completely.

“Don't be sad,” Shiori said quietly, just barely audible over the cicadas, “you'll always have me.”

When they finally finished the journey back to the castle, it was getting dark and Juri's mother was waiting there to take her home. When she went to take her crown off she pricked her thumb on a single thorn hidden among the fuzzy stems and had to wear a bandage around it for days.

  


* * *

  


The fencing match began with a flurry of movement but quickly settled into a rhythmic back and forth, an exchange clearly meant to test the waters and not to connect. Juri almost immediately began to perspire inside her helmet, trickles of sweat tickling her temples just enough to distract. She was thankful Shiori couldn't see her.

Every one of Shiori's phrases seemed to have a false beginning— nothing ended the way it should. Juri was forced to focus on everything from the angle of her shoulders to the squeak of her shoes against the track just to figure out where the attacks would diverge. Shiori's posture didn't suggest any strain at all, or even much effort, and Juri found herself trying to stare through the mask, to find some kind of pinprick of face through the mesh that might let her know what Shiori was thinking.

Juri didn't even notice when Shiori's wrist twisted sharply, driving the point of her épée into Juri's right arm. She froze when she felt the pressure, staring deep into the expressionless mask across from her and finding nothing. She jerked away from the touch and marched back to her end of the track, snapping back into a ready position. She wanted almost desperately to reach up and wipe her brow but if Shiori wasn't going to show her face, Juri wouldn't either.

  


* * *

  


“I'm leaving Ohtori Academy.”

Juri's expression didn't change when she replied, “What about your boyfriend?”

From the roof of the academy's main building, the entire school grounds were visible. Just minutes ago the view had been drenched in burning light the colour of Juri's hair, but already it was fading into something more dusty and pale. Shiori had stood behind Juri for the entire sunset, trying to find something to say. Juri had undoubtedly noticed her standing there but had made no efforts to even look at her, standing stiff and straight with her hands on the railing at the edge of the roof.

“I don't want to talk about him,” Shiori responded, and it was the truth. She didn't want to tell Juri that she had dumped him weeks ago. Shiori hated that she was as upset about that as she was— it wasn't like she liked him, she just wanted to prove— what, exactly? That she was as good as Juri? (She wasn't.) Better than her? (She never would be.) That she didn't need Juri's pity friendship to be happy? (She did. She hated it, but she'd had it for so long that she didn't know how to go without.) That she was capable of having a normal relationship? (What a joke.)

“I'm not here to talk about him,” she repeated, swallowing back the emotional lump in her throat that she had been swallowing back for longer than she could remember. “What about us?”

“Us?”

“Our friendship.” It made Shiori uncomfortable to call it that. She didn't know exactly what it had turned into— perhaps they had just started to drift apart. (Maybe Juri was finally just sick of her. She had her fencing club, she had her admirers, she had friends, what more did she need with Shiori?) But it felt wrong, after making so many pinky-sworn promises that they would be friends forever, to just let it end.

Juri still didn't look at her. “Nothing has to change.”

It had already changed, surely Juri saw that. Shiori nodded, more to convince herself than anything else. “Of course. Best friends forever, right?”

Juri nodded, perfect curls bouncing with the motion. She looked washed out and faded in the dying light. “Best friends forever.”

Those were the last words they spoke to one another for several years.

  


* * *

  


The match was growing increasingly frentic. Shiori could just barely hear the squeak of shoes and the clash of blades over the sound of her own laboured breathing, trapped close to her ears by her mask. (Juri probably wasn't even winded, what was wrong with her, so weak—)

Everything Juri did was calculated. Textbook. Her stance was flawless, her sword angled at a precise degree, every movement strong and confident with practice. It was easy to tell when Juri had worked to perfect something, because she was able to execute it with such ease.

Shiori had hardly ever seen Juri struggle with anything.

A few strands of Juri's hair had fallen loose from her mask, curling together into a single bright corkscrew hanging over her shoulder. They hooked Shiori's distracted focus and in the split instant that she forgot to move, Juri lunged forward, arm extended, her épée connecting neatly with the center of Shiori's left shoulder.

Naturally. A perfectly executed punishment for Shiori's stupid mistake.

Shiori turned on her heel and returned to her end of the strip, returning to a ready position before Juri could even turn around herself. Her face was burning under her mask, she knew she was red-cheeked and sweaty and she wanted to take a break— she wasn't used to matches like this, she was used to short bouts with other students— but as long as Juri was still fighting there was no way Shiori would throw in the towel.

She had to keep going. She had to crack through that infuriating facade of confidence, because she knew better than anyone else what Juri was.

She had to beat Juri.

(She never would.)

  


* * *

  


After she returned, and after all the secrets they had both kept for so many years came crumbling down on them, Shiori asked Juri permission to join the fencing club at Ohtori.

Juri visibly stiffened in her seat, hand freezing in place over the papers she was annotating. Shiori suddenly wished she had lingered in the door instead of marching into the student council room, shoulders squared and bristling for a confrontation. False confidence had never brought her anything but agony.

“The clubs are open to anyone,” Juri said, not looking up from whatever it was she was doing.

“But it's your club,” Shiori replied. If Juri didn't want to deal with the situation then Shiori wasn't going to apologize again, but the fact remained that Shiori was intruding on Juri's territory, even if her intentions were nothing sinister. (Were they really? Was she even capable of not scheming at this point?)

“I don't care,” Juri said, shuffling her papers into an untidy pile and snapping the book underneath them shut with perhaps a little too much force. “Do whatever you want.”

The first lesson Shiori attended was tense, to say the least.

No matter how much she tried to soften her blows, Juri found herself growing more and more vicious as she fenced. Because the students she taught were anonymous with their masks on, she was always aware that any one of them could have been Shiori. Of course she never actually hurt anyone, they wore heavy suits and masks and used blunted swords for a reason, but sometimes the feelings that swelled in her stomach and chest and hands that lingered even after a match scared her with their ferocity, their heat.

Nobody who faced Juri or Shiori could stand up to the onslaught— they carved through anyone who stood at the opposite end of the track, just in case.

  


* * *

  


Shiori's attacks were beginning to slow, and Juri's lines and posture were beginning to turn sloppy.

The final bout was dragging on painfully. Both Juri and Shiori were pushing too hard, going farther than they would during practice or even during a serious match. Their arms burned with each thrust and parry, their shoulders ached with the effort of staying in line. The sun had finally set, leaving the room cool and bluish— a small mercy.

There was no energy for finesse or skill left in either of them. Whoever managed to put together a coherent attack next would take the point.

With the last ounce of fight they had left, both Juri and Shiori took a final desperate lunge forward, aiming high and hoping for the best. The point of Juri's épée touched home in the hollow of Shiori's throat, and the tip of Shiori's weapon landed squarely in the center of Juri's forehead. The force of the strikes brought them close together and pushed the blades to bend, Shiori's arcing upwards and Juri's curving down.

For a long few moments they stood, breathing desperately, each staring into the mask of the girl they held at arm's length.

“Whose point,” Shiori finally gasped.

Juri shook her head minutely, not enough to dislodge Shiori's sword. “Both,” she said, just as breathless, “nobody has priority.”

Slowly, they broke apart. Shiori immediately stepped off the track and tore the mask from her face, but felt no relief when Juri did the same, no deep satisfaction or shame at the surrender that should have been a victory. Juri stared across the room at Shiori's sweaty, ruddy complexion and realized belatedly that there was no anger licking at her throat like flames from her chest.

“I don't think,” Juri said, “we can keep going on like this.”

Shiori dropped her épée and fell to the bench, scrambling for her water and spilling it down her chin as she drank. “We've been going on like this forever,” she said, once she swallowed and took a few shaking breaths, “we're not dead yet.”

Juri carefully took her sword by the point and walked to where Shiori was sitting. Shiori braced herself for something— what, exactly, she didn't know— but Juri simply leaned down and picked up the apple Shiori had been eating before the match in one of her gloved hands. The bite had left a pale patch exposed, unprotected by skin, and it had browned badly during the match.

Juri brought the bruised fruit to her lips and with a gentle crunch bit off the dark spot, leaving clean flesh behind, then placed it back on the bench. “I suppose you're right.”

With a deliberate hand she gathered her cascade of hair and coiled it back up behind her head. She stepped onto the track then carefully placed her sword aside to pull her mask back down over her face. Shiori stared at her as she went.

“En garde?” Juri said, bringing her sword up into a salute.

Shiori picked up the apple once more, grasped it carefully and sank her teeth into the spot still warm from Juri's mouth. It tasted crisp and unspoiled.

Juri waited patiently as Shiori collected herself, her sword and her mask, and stepped back onto the track. When Shiori returned the salute it was with a renewed focus and precision.

“Prêt,” she said, noticing the way Juri bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Allez!”


End file.
